March 31, 2008

Plus, I haven't posted anything in a while and although I have a gazillion pictures from our trip, my battery is dead, I have a mountain of laundry to do and there are no groceries in the house other than some questionable eggs and a carton of milk due to expire tomorrow.

At least I still have all those boxes of chex mix in the cupboard that I yelled at the kids not to eat because I was going to make chex mix...yeah, that never happened. I didn't realize it took like 2 hours to make them and I either haven't had the time, or have had the attitude like "Seriously?!?! 2 hours to make Chex Mix?!?!?! The kids can eat the stuff. I don't even LIKE chex mix that much to spend 2 hours to make it!!!"

Anyway, here is the article. I thought it was cute, so I'm sharing.

20 Funny Secrets From a Stay-at-Home MomHumour writer Kathy Buckworth on why being a stay-at-home mom is so annoying....oh, er, satisfying!By Kathy Buckworth1. The title "stay at home" is a passive-aggressive term. There is nothing flattering, glamorous or remotely attractive about the word "stay." "Too Much Woman to Be Confined to a Cubicle Farm" works better.2. Apparently, you are expected to be "at home" for some parts of the day; particularly those parts when children under the age of 12 are in your care.3. Repairmen are not sexy in any way.4. Nothing very exciting happens. But you need to talk, so the best entertainment is gossip and backstabbing. It is unavoidable and addictive.5. People will say, "Well, its not like you're working or anything" just moments before they a) sign you up for lame volunteer duties at your child's school, b) dump their own brats on your doorstep, or c) redirect all their home deliveries to your front door (even the fertilizer order).6. Cleaning the house is not a problem, keeping it clean is. If the house is as clean at the end of the day as it was when you started, you win.7. You cannot be late for anything, or with anything. You have nothing else to do.8. Your perceived intelligence drops by at least 50 IQ points. You may have run the computer science department at MIT before you decided to stay at home, but two weeks into the new job and your kids will be asking Dad for help on the family computer.9. You have no excuse for not exercising.10. You have no excuse for not eating a healthy lunch.11. You can be truly bored at the same time you are acknowledging that you could be exercising, cleaning the house or watching someone else's kids.12. The minute you resign form your old position, they promote it to a higher level, increase the salary and bestow a fabulous new title on that bitch who took over from you.13. Your husband either a) shirks all domestic duty, which makes you mad, or b) doesn't shirk any, making you feel guilty. Yay! Something new to fight about!14. Your children expect you to be at their beck and call. Even in the middle of an emergency manicure, one is expected to drop everything and rush to the school over a perceived "sore stomach."15. You now have time to launder the sheets.16. Even after 5 p.m., drinking with only children in the house is still considered to be "drinking alone." What, you had a hard day or something?17. Your children are no better behaved simply because you're the primary caregiver now. In fact, most often, they're worse.18. If you dress nicely, neighbours are suspicious. If you dress like a slob, you've let yourself go. If you dress too old, you're middle-aged before your time. If you dress too young, you're a slut.19. Teachers expect you to be on top of the notes they send home.

March 18, 2008

We had conferences for Bobalu tonight and they weren't too surprising. He's still scoring well above average. He jumped from a level 27 to a level 44....apparently he may be higher than that, but that's where they stopped. That's like saying he can read like a 5th or 6th grader...so basically like his sister.

His math skills are also excellent...way to go B!!!

His writing is improving, but he's still got a little way to go. With how good he does at reading, his teacher thought his writing would be better, but basically he just needs to slow down.

His behavior...well that wasn't a surprise, but it's still disappointing when there's a laundry list of behaviours that don't sit well with anyone.B felt bad, cried about it (he cries easily) and we all agreed that he needs to work on his behaviour.

It's almost like he's missing that filter that normal people have that tells them "Don't do that! Don't say that! Hey! Knock it off!"

I love B. He's a sweet little soul. I hope this energy of his can continue to be channeled into better things than disruptive behaviour.

So anyway, he wanted to practice his writing, and I suggested that maybe he write about how he's going to work on his behaviour and here's the list he came up with (in his writing...):

I will be better by doing good ThinkI will be a better romotel. (that's supposed to be Role Model...he read them to me :)I will be respectfull.I will be responsaball.I will be good t my friends and techer.

I love the role model part the best. He wants to teach his brother how to be a good boy. So sweet....

Overall, his behaviour HAS seen improvement over the last year, but there's still too much of it. I think this week has been hard on him especially because he was supposed to spend the wkend with S&T but they ditched him with T's Mom all wkend....which, btw is in violation of their visitation time. So he got home on Sunday and was all upset because he only saw them for a couple hours the entire wkend...I'm not even going to elaborate on how I feel about this. I'm sure that you can imagine...

March 16, 2008

So I'm not really posting anything exciting tonight. I coded everyone's names and changed the title so that I had a little more privacy but could still write what I wanted...

After I get caught up on housework this week after nothing being done while I was working for the past 2 weeks, I will start posting new photos everyday again. With spring knocking on the door, I plan on getting Monkey in the stroller for some nice long walks through the woods and trails.

I had a very lovely dinner with Ms Holly this evening. We went to Campiello in Eden Prarie and it was very good. Go there. For real... Spendy, but worth the money and I don't say that very often when I drop a hundo on dinner...

Anyway, it's late and we've got a bunch of house stuff to do tomorrow, so g'nite!

March 11, 2008

It's true. My son just read that to me from his storybook that he brought home from the library. It's a picture book about beetles. Lovely...

In other, non-insect related news, today is my wonderful Mother-In-Law's birthday!!!Happy 25th JoAnn!!! :) Here is a picture of her with one of her favorite people...

I also wanted to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! to my Aunt Connie who was kind enough to FedEx us Monkeys blanket after I accidentally left it at her house this wkend. I thought he was going to be a lot crabbier about it, but he was ok until we pulled it out of the box this evening and then he was excited to see his friends again (I'll post a pic later).

Well, I've got a hankering for some good ol' fashioned chocolate chip cookies, so I'd better get crackin' on that if I'm going to get them made before bedtime.

March 8, 2008

Send me your favorite hotdish recipes!Seriously...I know it's a strange request, but I only have like 2 recipes for hotdish and I'm tired of them. Plus I need some easy make-ahead things for Chad to throw in the oven next week when I'm working so the kids don't have to eat corn dogs and frozen pizza every night :)Send me any other easy recipes too...

March 3, 2008

Ok, so I'm working FT this week and next week, so you probably won't be hearing much from me. Between working from 10-6, getting kids ready for school and then tucked into bed at night, and the other project I'm still working on....you get the picture :)

Plus, the house is basically done, but we still have a few things left to do until we can move into our bedroom. We did stock up on modern and affordable swedish furniture yesterday, but...

Oh yeah, and even though I'm only working 3 days this week, I basically have to spend the other 2 getting ready for next week, so...that's fun.

I almost wish I wasn't doing this job, but it'll be good to have some extra money and I think I'll appreciate being able to be a SAHM more :) I love it to pieces, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I fantasize about getting back to my career...

It's funny how much better things seem in a fantasy than in reality...hahahahaWork sucks...

March 1, 2008

Happy March...Today we ran all day and so I'm exhausted, but luckily we're just lazing around tonight on our new couch and loveseat...Thanks Kaplas!!!We got them from friends...they needed the extra room, so we have bigger furniture now, albiet a MUCH smaller living room, but whatever.I'd write more, but after a sleepless night (Thanks Monkey), a busy day moving furniture and cruisin' around EP the rest of the day, I'm beat. We had a busy day.Lucky Ms Pipps got to go to a slumber party tonight, so it's pretty quiet here tonight. That's ok.

Oh, btw, we rented and watched Beowulf last night. Terrible. REALLY bad...and super raunchy in the beginning for no reason that we could determine other than some dude in the graphics dept thought it'd be fun to have a cartoon version of a Viking Warrior going down on a buxom Mead-sloshed maiden...

Actually, that sounds like fun ;) Haha...

Seriously, don't watch the movie. It was NOT worth the gas money for the free movie rental...